Empire Island, Exile the First

Chapter 16

My mouth tasted like somebody had shit in it sometime while I slept.

Wait.

It tasted like somebody had taken a shit, eaten it, vomited it up, re-eaten it and then shat that in my mouth some time overnight.

I'm not one for dramatics, but my mouth was foul and my head ached to match the overall feeling. If I created a mood board of how I felt, it'd have pictures of shit and jack hammers. That's it.

I fluttered my eyelids to unglue them from the sticky sleep caught in the lashes and at last, they opened. I think I felt a couple being pulled out as I forced my lid up, but I'd be okay.

My appearance wasn't exactly on the top of my list of things to worry about just then.

I was in some small, dark room with wooden walls and a single sliver of light glowing under the door. My hands were bound behind my back with roughhewn rope and I had a ball of cloth shoved between my teeth.

Hence the taste. Had Mike dug around in his dirty laundry and decided on a skid marked pair of tighty whities? Or was it just the leftovers of what they'd forced me to drink in the middle of the night after they'd dragged me down here?

I'd woken up groggy as they carried me, one on either side with their hands hooked under my arms. For once, being tall and thick with muscle had amused me as I listened to them huff and puff to haul my dead weight away from the main house.

"She's awake," Mike growled and they'd both stopped. I'd fought against them, but the thick oily magic was still slowing my limbs and made it feel like I was moving through a vat of glue.

"Come on, drink this," Mara said and they'd held my head tight while Mike squeezed my face until I'd opened my mouth against my will. Mara had emptied a small bottle of bitter, pungent liquid onto my tongue and they'd both held my mouth shut, so I had no choice but to swallow.

It had knocked me out again, and without access to a window, I couldn't even tell how long I'd been down.

I rolled to my side, spit out the cloth, and braced myself just enough to sit upright with my back against the wall. I couldn't see much in the dim room but as my eyes adjusted, details appeared before me.

The walls, ceiling and floor were all wood. Fresh cut cedar from the smell of it, but not smoothed by the rough texture grating against any exposed skin. I supposed that was the point, cedar splinters were bad. They hurt like crazy, were poisonous to the human body, and interfered with the channels of magic in most humans.

Luckily, I wasn't like most humans and I'd grown up in this area, so cedar was already in my blood and incorporated into my spell casting.

I braced my feet against the floor, pushing hard until I moved up the wall into a standing position. I wasn't sure how I'd get out of my bindings, but I looked around for anything that'd help.

There was a single chair against the wall opposite of the door. Next to it was a small side table that appeared to be completely bare. Other than that, there was absolutely nothing of value that could help me escape.

I contemplated using magic, but I wasn't even certain what glyph I'd use or if there was a spell that could be applicable in this situation. If I made a mistake, I could tighten the rope and cut off my hands all together.

Besides, from what I could tell when I extended my sixth sense, my magic had fled and was hiding out somewhere with the magic from the well source. I hadn't stuck around to learn enough to handle a situation like this, maybe fleeing Empire had been a stupid choice after all.